


Bad Impulses

by hearts_blood



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, F/F, Female Relationships, Hurt/Comfort, Oral Sex, POV Female Character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sex, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-06
Updated: 2012-03-06
Packaged: 2017-11-01 13:52:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/357526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/hearts_blood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Susan must reach out for help in coping with life among the Minbari.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Impulses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rivendellrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivendellrose/gifts).



> Written for the prompt "fear of the fall" [Susan/Delenn]. This should not have taken as long as it did. Damn angsty romance plot getting in the way of my smut. :P Oh, and to all Delenn/Susan shippers: please pimp this fic! :D

At least once a day, and oftentimes more, Susan Ivanova had to remove herself from her duties as _Anla'shok Na_. She would dismiss her aides and lock herself in her office, and for perhaps fifteen minutes to an hour, there would be long patches of thick, angry silence punctuated by sudden dull thwacks at random intervals, as though she was punching her desk or the wall. And when she emerged, her right hand would be bruised and bloodied, attesting to that fact. 

Sometimes, Delenn found out, Susan would get up and leave right in the middle a planning session or a training exercise. The _sechs_ treated her behavior as mere eccentricity, but it worried Delenn. In all the years she had known Susan, she had never been the sort of officer to simply walk away from her duties without warning.

She had only been in charge of the Rangers for a few months. If she was not equal to the task, Delenn needed to know.

When Jeffrey Sinclair had been Ranger One, he had lived in the house where Valen once dwelt. But that building had spent the last twenty years acting as a school for the children the Rangers of all species seemed to so quickly produce, and so Susan had her quarters in the administrative block on the _anla'shok_ base.

Delenn waited until the usual business of the day was concluded, and she could metaphorically fold up her paperwork, dismiss her aides, lock her office, and proceed to Susan's quarters with as little comment as possible from anyone who might choose to connect Ranger One's odd behavior with the circumstance of a late-evening visit from _Entil'zha_. 

She stood outside Susan's door and rang the chime for entrance. There was no response. She tried again, with the same result. "Susan? Susan, it's Delenn. Please let me in." She repeated the admonition in English, and then in Susan's native tongue, with increasing annoyance. Finally, she simply used her code to override the lock and stepped inside.

The first thing she noticed was the blood on the stone walls, spotted and streaked in horizontal lines. The second thing she saw was Susan Ivanova, standing before another section of wall, a half-empty bottle held loosely in one hand while she dragged the knuckles of the other across the roughly-chiseled stone. And even Delenn's not exceptionally-sensitive nose could smell what Susan had been imbibing. "Susan."

"Where'd you learn to speak Russian?" the Human woman demanded, rather thickly.

"From you," retorted Delenn, her voice even and slightly cold, "over the course of many years." She held out her hand. "Give me the bottle."

"Don' wanna. I'm feeling existential and angry and Russian and I need vodka to feel all those things properly."

"And pain? Do you need alcohol to feel that?"

"What pain?" Susan replied, and thwacked her hand against the wall again. Delenn winced at the sound; from long experience of Human trainees, the alcohol in Susan's blood was likely the only thing keeping her knuckles from shattering. 

Susan leaned her head tiredly against the rock, breathing slowly. Delenn moved forward and gently removed the bottle from her nerveless fingers. She knew she should call a doctor for her friend, but her soul recoiled from exposing Susan's private demons, whatever they were, to anyone else. Not while she was in this condition. 

Delenn set the bottle on the Earth-style kitchen counter, a courtesy that had been installed at John's behest. "Sit," she ordered, pointing to a kitchen chair. Too far gone to argue, Susan obeyed, and watched with dull, disinterested eyes while Delenn gently washed her split knuckles. "We have training facilities for this kind of thing," said Delenn, after a time. "There is no cause to abuse your furniture... or your hands."

"Better them than my colleagues," Susan muttered, her voice slurred. "And better than nobody knows Ranger One has to walk away before she starts bashing in Minbari skulls."

Delenn stilled. "What?"

Swearing in Russian, Susan jerked her injured hand away. "Sorry. You didn't need to hear that."

Something in Delenn's chest strained and threatened to crack. "Tell me what you meant."

For a long time, Susan said nothing. She didn't move, and neither did Delenn. The city could have crumbled to dust around them and still they would have stood there, waiting, fearing, praying. 

"I've never been a forgiving person," said Susan, haltingly, choosing her words with the deliberate care of the consciously drunk. "It took me a long... long time to come to terms with how my mother's life ended... my resentment towards my father. Losing Talia. How Marcus died. How my brother and my friends died during the war. And maybe I never have. Maybe I never really will.

"Living here, working with people whose parents fought against Earth—hell, who might've done their own fighting in that war... It's slowly driving me crazy. Every day, I go out there and a little niggling devil on my shoulder whispers in my ear, 'These are the enemy. These people killed Ganya.' 

"And every day, I have to remind myself, 'These are not the enemy.'" She held up her hands and winced. "Hence the vodka and bloody knuckles. Money couldn't buy better therapy." 

"Perhaps not." Delenn took the battered hands in her own, and focused her clear pale eyes on Susan's bleary ones. "But perhaps a friend could offer something better."

Susan woman stared at her for a moment or two while her brain tried to process that more-than-usually cryptic statement, and then gave up. "Delenn, I can't tell if you're offering to counsel me or screw me, and right now I don't care. I just want to go to bed."

"I can live with that. Let me help you."

"...I can get myself to bed. I'm not that drunk."

"I will pretend that you didn't just say that, so I do not have to accuse you of being a liar."

Reluctantly, Susan let Delenn steer her into her bedroom, and put up with Delenn helping her remove her boots and her outer clothes. "I'm _fine_ ," she insisted, clumsily batting away Delenn's hand when they moved to the clasp of her bra. "Used to fall asleep with m' boots on when I came back from shore leave." 

She took two steps forward and fell, literally, into bed, face-first into her pillow. 

Delenn sighed, muttering serenity prayers in Adronato.

She wedged her hands beneath Susan's torso ("'S not nice to feel up a drunk lady...") and helped her to roll over onto her back. As she was straightening out the oversized Earth-style pillow, Susan reached up and pulled her down; her kiss landed half on Delenn's mouth and half on her cheek and reeked sharply of alcohol, and startled Delenn so much that she nearly lost her balance. 

"Susan," she warned, removing the other woman's arms and pushing down the tremor in her voice.

Susan was already half-asleep and fighting it. "I know I've got a lot to answer for," she muttered, trying to focus on Delenn's face. "An' I know _you've_ got a lot to answer for. But if there's a reason I can look a Minbari in the face and _know_ I can trust that person... well, you're that reason."

Delenn said nothing, only smoothed a hand over Susan's hair. She seemed to gather herself together. Then briefly pressed her lips to Susan's hot forehead, and left quickly.

***

When Delenn arrived at her office the next morning, Susan was already there waiting for her, sitting awkwardly on the edge of Delenn's desk and confusing the aides. "I pestered them into letting me make my own coffee," she explained, pouring Delenn a cup. "You still indulge now and again, right?"

"On occasion. But a small amount, please, black. Caffeine in large quantities puts me to sleep."

"You and every other Minbari. But you all seem to like it, and you all take it black, so I keep it around." Susan's eyes were just the tiniest bit bloodshot, the skin around them slightly puffy. "Comes in handy in meetings," she grinned.

Delenn tamped down a smile. "Officially, it's my place to disapprove in the strongest possible terms of _Anla'shok Na_ merrily drugging the local bureaucrats during civic discussions."

"And unofficially?"

"Well... It _was_ very funny." Delenn held the warm stoneware between her hands and inhaled the fragrant steam. "How did you sleep?"

Susan shrugged. "I... don't really remember, actually." There was a faint but noticeable tinge of red on her cheekbones. "Look, about last night... I'm sorry. I broke your trust and behaved... well, moronically badly. You shouldn't have tried to deal with me all by yourself. I was a mess last night... Why didn't you call in a doctor or a security team or something?"

"I did not wish to divulge your... personal foibles to anyone else, not even the physicians. Not while you were unable to consent to treatment. As for security..." Delenn's voice deepened into amusement. "I have heard what happens when Susan Ivanova, alcohol, and security personnel are mixed together. I thought it best to avoid the combination."

"Avoid the...? Dammit, Delenn, I would have been _thrilled_ to take on a Ranger security team while plastered! Hell, I'm flattered you even considered it."

"...Why?"

"It plays into all my delusions of grandeur." The joke, which was no joke at all, fell flat. "I am sorry, though, that you had to see me like that. And as for what I _said_..."

"If it was the truth, then I am glad you said it."

"...Come again?"

Delenn sipped her coffee absently. Then she put the mug down and looked her friend straight in her hungover face. "I am _glad_ that you said what was said. The war between our peoples was thirty years ago, and you were a child. If you are still carrying this pain with you, it might be purged."

Susan grimaced. "Please. Don't mentioned 'purging.'" She looked down and quickly moved her cup to the other side of the desk. "I don't want to get the mugs mixed up. Got a little hair of the dog in mine."

"Drinking more alcohol is not going help the fact that you are suffering from the effects of too much alcohol. And vodka and black coffee can't be good for a recently-emptied stomach."

"Eh. That's nothing to a set of cast-iron St. Petersburg guts."

"Susan." Delenn rarely spoke to her friend in any tones of command—her relationship with Susan was based on long years of mutual trust and respect, and their personalities meshed well for it. 

But she spoke now as a superior officer, and saw Susan's spine straighten automatically, if a little resentfully. "Yes, _Entil'zha_?"

"You are not alone in your sufferings. You need time for rest and restoration and quiet reflection. I think you have had very little of that in your military life."

Her matter-of-fact sympathy caught Susan badly off-guard. "You're damned right about that," she blurted out. 

"If you wish... I would like to offer you my help. There are counseling and meditative services available for Minbari veterans."

"Seriously? I... huh. For some reason I didn't think Minbari believed in PTSD."

"It is considered impolite to discuss a Warrior's private concerns, and the trauma of battle is an... intensely personal thing. I could arrange for you to receive treatment... with your permission." 

Susan relaxed her spine a fraction, reached for her coffee and gulped the rest of the sludge down. "You really think I need this."

"I do." Delenn held out her hand. "Will you let me help you?"

For a long time, Susan stared at the slim, strong hand offered her. Finally, she took it, letting out a nervous little laugh. "You promise you'll help me? Not just dump me on the shrink's doorstep and wash your hands of me?"

"I promise."

"Okay, I... okay. I, um... need to get to my office. Paperwork and... Ranger stuff." Blindly, Susan headed for the door. Then she stopped short, and turned with a very worried expression. "A lot of last night is still kind of... hazy. But I think I did something that I really... really shouldn't have."

"Yes. You tried to kiss me. Rather sloppily."

"Oh, for God's sake," Susan muttered, dropping her face into her hand. The last thing she needed was to be court-martialed for sexual assault of the most revered woman on the planet. "Can we just forget last night ever happened?" 

"I would rather not forget," said Delenn, looking at Susan with her pale eyes large and luminous. Susan's mouth had gone rather dry, and she didn't think it was from the boozed-up coffee. "Had it happened under other circumstances, I would have been flattered... even willing to pursue it. But as you are now... I do not think that would be wise."

"You're completely right," said Susan emphatically. "I couldn't agree more, I..."

Delenn reached up and touched her face, stroking Susan's cheek with a thoughtful expression. "Perhaps in time," she smiled slightly, and bowing, she turned to her work so that Susan might continue on with her duties. 

Susan made her way to her own office. Outwardly she was calm, but inside her chest, her heart--which in spite of her best efforts she had never been able to control--leapt in hope.

*** 

The last time Susan Ivanova had been to anything resembling a counselor was right after her mother's death. Between Mama dying and Papa and Ganya fighting all the time, cousin Magda had insisted. Susan still remembered sitting in the psychiatrist's cold office (Magda had complained of the heat at the time, but in Susan's memory, it was always cold), one hand gripping her cousin's and the other hand wrapped around her favorite doll. The doctor had been an elderly, motherly-looking woman in a worn knit sweater, with silvery-gray hair exquisitely dressed. Her eyes had been gray, too. Gray and cold and calculating. She had murmured warm hellos and asked gentle questions, and all the time she was talking, little Susan had wanted nothing more than to burrow into Magda's plump side and hide from those eyes. They made her shrink and shiver, and withdraw into the memories of her mother that were hers alone, never to be shared.

Susan sat before the Minbari counselor (an 'idae'mer,' Delenn had called him, a healer of souls, even though Susan protested that her soul wasn't the problem) with her hands knotted in the long brown-patterned vest of her office, and tried not to flinch under his dark-eyed gaze, which was worlds kinder than that long-ago child psychiatrist's but just as keen.

They sat in a garden in a little secluded conservatory a short distance from Ranger HQ, well away from the business of life in Tuzanor, among the anla'shok. The air was delightfully warm for a change, rich with moisture and just heavy enough to make Susan feel drowsy. "You know," she said after a while, breaking the silence that had stretched out between them for God knows how long, "if you don't start talking soon, I'm gonna fall asleep."

The _idae'mer_ chuckled. "It is not my business to talk," he said, "but to listen."

"That's a first. Every other shrink I've known about loved to hear the sound of their own voice. Almost as bad as lawyers."

"I hear quite enough of my own voice at home, when I have to scold my boys," replied the counselor, whose name was Kanell. "You have experience with those of my profession?"

"Yeah, you could say that... you've got kids?"

"I have two sons."

"What are they like?"

Kanell's warm brown eyes were gently amused. "Do you truly wish to hear about my children, Ranger One? Or do you simply hope to avoid talking to me about why you are here?"

Susan twisted her vest more tightly between her hands. Then she blushed and let the garment go. "Sorry, I'm not, um... I'm not usually this fidgety. Didn't Delenn tell you why she wanted me to talk to someone?"

He shook his head. "It is not Delenn's demons that are my concern today, but yours." He rested his hands flat on his knees, with deliberate, almost exaggerated motions that couldn't help but catch Susan's eye; unconsciously, she found herself copying him. "I know only that Entil'zha is concerned for you, someone for whom she cares very much."

Cheeks burning, Susan looked down and found her hands knotted into her clothes again. "Damn it."

Kanell reached into his vest pocket and pulled out what looked like a piece of soft gray rope, which he gave to Susan. It was about twelve inches long, very flexible and intricately braided. "What is it?"

"It is a Worker's prayer cord. Members of my caste use it in our daily devotions, as Humans of some faiths use strings of beads. It is also often used as an aid to contemplation and relaxation." He took another piece of rope from his pocket and showed Susan how to untwist the different fibers. Then, with great patience and many false starts as Susan tried to copy him, he demonstrated how to braid them back together in the correct pattern. 

Susan was... someone less patient. "You said you do this to relax?" she grumbled, trying to disentangle her fingers and only succeeding in dropping the prayer cord for the sixth time.

"The Religious caste prays with every breath; the Warriors take their bodies into battle, both simulated and real. Workers pray with the movements of our hands." Kanell's fingers moved easily and rapidly as he spoke, and his hands seemed to flow independently of his eyes. "We are taught this art as very young children, to give us dexterity and concentration, and also to help us find serenity. When the hands are busy, the mind is free to wander, to walk paths that are all too often blocked when the hands are idle."

With calm, steady good humor, he repeated the motions over and over for Susan to follow, and corrected her movements by the gentle pressure of his lean fingers on her wrists. "Your kids can probably do this with their eyes closed," said Susan, rubbing her forehead until the image of ropes and fingers stopped swimming in her vision. 

"They can, yes. But they have many years of practice." Kanell smiled and shook his head when Susan tried to give the prayer cord back. "That is yours. Keep practicing."

Her lips spread in a lopsided grin. "I think I'm going to find more frustration than peace with this thing."

Kanell shrugged. "Perhaps, but at least it's a frustration within your control, hmm?"

To Susan's surprise, Delenn was very interested in the prayer cord when Susan took it out to show her, after dinner in Delenn's home. "You've never seen one of these before?"

"I have seen Workers with them, of course. But I have never held one before." Delenn's slim, strong fingers handled the silvery cord respectfully. "They are highly personal objects." Her smile was one of genuine gratitude and friendship. "Thank you for sharing this with me," she said, touching Susan's wrist. The gray-green eyes that she turned up to Susan shone softly, and it seemed a natural thing for Susan to step a little closer, to let Delenn slowly and smoothly slide her hand up Susan's forearm and cup her elbow, holding her thumb in the crook of Susan's arm while the Human held her breath and pressed her lips again Delenn's cheek, just shy of her soft, waiting mouth.

Very gently, Delenn squeezed Susan's arm, reassuring her.

Susan made the short walk from the Presidential estate to her quarters in the _anla'shok_ administration building last over two hours, dawdling and meandering down unnecessary side streets, kicking herself thoroughly. _Goddammit, I shouldn't have tried to kiss her. John hasn't even been dead a year. What the hell was I thinking?_

 _But this morning, in her office,_ she remembered, with a sudden warm twisting in her stomach, _she said, Maybe. In time._

_This wasn't 'in time,' this was on the same fucking day!_

Finally the plummeting early winter temperature drove her inside. The cold was merely brisk and invigorating to someone brought up in Russia, but that was the problem—it reminded her too much of Russia for her comfort. So she went up to her quarters.

She stripped off her uniform and threw it blindly into a chair, heading for the shower. Resting her head against the smooth stone tiles, Susan let the hot water pound down on her face. 

Later, as she fell into bed, she offered up thanks to John for getting her a nice flat bed instead of the damn reclining boards the rest of the planet was content to sleep on. He had gone out of his way, before he died, to make sure that whoever came after him wouldn't lack for all the comforts of Earth... like he'd known she wouldn't be able to turn him down. "Screw you, Sheridan," she murmured into the pillow she pulled against her face. "I _will_ get you back for this when I see you again... wherever the hell you are."

But she smiled as she said it. Susan let out a long, cleansing sigh and fell peacefully to sleep. 

She woke up screaming and ran for the bathroom. 

The dream had been a jumbled, bloody thing. Marcus alive and suffocating inside his cryo-tube. Talia lying in pieces on a dissecting table. Ganya's burned body floating through space. Mama hanging in the basement, her face blackened and swollen. 

And all their eyes looking straight at her, sad and angry and accusing. 

_"We loved you. We trusted you."_

John with his hands around her neck, blazing like an angel, cursing her for lusting after his wife. 

Susan retched dryly into the toilet until there was nothing left in her stomach, then lay on the floor with her forehead against the porcelain, feeling her neck in confusion. It didn't hurt to touch it, but there was still a lingering phantom pain in her skin.

She stumbled around in a darkened cabinet and pulled out her last carefully cherished bottle of vodka. She broke the seal, tore off the cap, raised the bottle to her lips... and stopped. _Not like this, Susan._

She went into her kitchenette, flicking on the light as she passed. She balanced the bottle on the counter as she stared into the Earth-style sink. Her gut was screaming at her to just pour the stuff down the drain... but that would mean putting alcohol into the local water supply. Yes, there were filters in place to prevent just such an occurrence from causing harm... but could she take that chance, knowing what could potentially be the result if she failed? Even a million-to-one ratio of ethanol to water could bring disaster to the city. 

Susan hunted for the bottle cap on the floor, wrenched it back onto the bottle, and all but threw the vodka back into its cabinet. 

In frustration, she caught up her uniform and searched through the pockets until she found the silver-colored prayer cord she had been given. She threw herself down on her back on the bed, not trying to use the cord properly but just rubbing it between her fingers. The light in the kitchen was still on but she ignored it, feeling the soft, strong fibers of the prayer cord and thinking of the little doll she had brought to that long-ago psychiatrist's office and that she wished she still had, to tell her troubles to. 

There had been a story that went along with that doll, an old fairytale that Susan hadn't thought of in years, but which had been much beloved by her mother Sofie. Susan twined the prayer cord around her fingers, murmuring under her breath. "'Many years ago, in a certain village lived an old couple, who had just one daughter, named Vassilisa...'" 

*** 

Susan kept the cord with her all week, in the pocket of her vest. Whenever she felt the urge rising up in her to hit someone (usually an otherwise inoffensive Minbari like _Sech_ Turhan), instead of turning and fleeing to her office to punch the wall, she reached into her pocket and curled her hand around the little piece of rope, hearing her mother's voice in her head as she told the story of beautiful Vassilisa. 

She was a little worried that Kanell would be disappointed with how she had been using his gift, but when she confessed her coping strategy during their second meeting, he was vastly pleased. "How you find comfort in it is more important than how I do, so long as you treat it with reverence. Which I can see that you are," he added gently. 

"Thanks. Um... could you show me again, how to braid it properly?" She held out the cord. Kanell positioned her hands on the fibers, covered her fingers with his own callused ones, and slowly guided her through a series of motions that seemed very simple when done at the speed of a snail. "Is this how you taught your sons to pray?"

Kanell smiled. "I did, yes."

Susan was quiet for a little while, concentrating on memorizing the movements and mulling nervously over what she wanted to say. "Have you ever lost anyone?" she asked at last. "Someone you love?"

"I have."

"Do you... ever feel like it was your fault?"

The counselor's hands paused, and then Kanell squeezed her fingers lightly. "I do. Sometimes."

Susan took a deep breath. "I feel that way all the time. Everyone I've ever loved... there are days when I honestly think I'm cursed. What happened to my mother..." She clenched the thin bit of rope very hard. "My older brother died in the war. He was killed in combat with the _Black Star_. And all the time I was in Earthforce and living on Babylon 5 and then working out on the Rim and in Geneva, I thought I'd learned how to handle that. Now I'm here and I... I can't. I can't. It's like I'm surrounded by his murderers." She raised angry brown eyes to her counselor and felt the familiar urge to take a blunt object and bash his crested head in. "Do you have any idea what it's like to live like that?"

"Not precisely, no," said Kanell. He loosened his grip on her hands. "But I have spent the last six years living with my wife's killer, so I do have some understanding."

"Your wife's...?"

"My wife died giving birth to our second son. Everyday is a struggle not to blame the boy _or_ myself for what happened." Holding her gaze, Kanell shook his head slowly. "Some days, I do not succeed. I can only pray that he will never know... and that in the next life, I will be able to find my wife and ask for her forgiveness."

Susan felt like she had just been punched in the throat. "God, and I'm sitting here bugging you with my problems..."

He shrugged. "You asked."

"I did, yeah... At least you're working to hide that resentment from your son. My father didn't even try to do that much for me."

Kanell studied her face for several long moments. Then he laid his hands over hers again, demonstrating the motions and waiting for her to tell him. 

*** 

Susan generally shared a meal with Delenn at least once a week, if not more when they could both find the time. It didn't escape her notice that the last two weeks, those evening had been scheduled on the same day as her session with Kanell. "I promised I would not abandon you," said Delenn simply, when Susan asked about the seeming coincidence, "and I will not."

"Thank you," said the Human quietly.

Over dinner, Delenn asked Susan to show her how to use the prayer cord, so after the meal, they sat down on the sofa together so that Susan could try and demonstrate the technique of unbinding and rebraiding that Kanell had shown her—not because she actually wanted to show Delenn how very much she sucked at this, but because Delenn was so enthralled by the twist of rope, and, well... because she looked so very beautiful when she was interested in something that it made Susan ache to see her. She covered Delenn's hands as Kanell had done and tried to guide her fingers through the intricate movements. "This is beginning to look like an exercise in futility," Delenn laughed after their sixth failed attempt. "Now I understand why Workers learn this art before they learn their letters." But her smile was so open and infectious that Susan couldn't help but grin back, and duck her head to hide how badly Delenn's sparkling eyes and lovely, inviting lips made Susan want to kiss her until neither of them could breathe. And the fact that she was beginning to think Delenn wouldn't mind that at all put knots in her chest.

"I don't think Kanell really expects me to get the hang of this," she said, giving up and coiling the cord neatly. "Honestly, I think he just wanted me to stop fussing with my hands."

"Your hands?"

"Yeah. Couldn't keep them still. Funny, the last time I went to a counselor, I had my doll with me—I was really little," she felt compelled to explain. "But... I don't know. Maybe my hands were looking for that doll." The image of the toy was as clear in Susan's mind as if she had had it sitting on her knee, and old-fashioned rag doll in colorful traditional peasant skirts and long golden-red braids. "I named her Vassilisa," she remembered, "after a girl in my favorite fairy story. My mother was a wonderful storyteller." Any minute now, Susan knew, the tears were going to come. And she didn't _want_ to cry in front of Delenn... but if Delenn wasn't safe to cry to, who was? "I wish I knew what happened to that doll," Susan mumbled, refusing to let herself fall.

Delenn's expression was thoughtful, but all she said was, "Perhaps it is time we prepared for bed."

Susan had been a visitor at the presidential estate many times over the years and knew where all the family rooms and guest rooms were, so unless Delenn had done some major remodeling since John's passing, she was leading her guest into the master bedroom. "For your comfort," said Delenn simply. "For Minbari, the sharing of a bed is not always an invitation to intercourse—in fact, it is more often _not_ , merely a shared closeness between friends and family members. And I would think myself a poor friend," she added, pressing a hand lightly to Susan's sternum, "if I did not seek to offer you this comfort in your time of need."

"Oh... right, of course," said Susan inanely, her mouth going quite dry at the sight of Delenn serenely disrobing in front of her. _Comfort_ , she reminded herself. _Time of need. Right._

She'd actually seen Delenn in a somewhat less-than-clothed state before, once, years before on Babylon 5, when she had been asked by the very embarrassed Minbari ambassador for help with her new and apparently gravely offended hair. The control of the shower, the purpose and manner of using shampoo and conditioner, the proper use of a comb and brush—Delenn had required instruction in everything even remotely related to hair. And she had asked, in a fond, trusting tone that touched Susan very much, even long before she had begun to think of Delenn as more than a friend ("Not that I'm thinking of her that way now," Susan said sternly to herself, while Delenn laid aside her surcoat and long over-dress, baring her still-firm torso and breasts with as little self-consciousness as a cat), if Susan would please stay in the bathroom while she showered.

So Susan sat on the toilet and tried in vain not to blush or stare while she watched the ambassador, through the frosted glass door of the shower cubicle that concealed everything but her general shape and the warm blush of her skin under the hot water. Susan still remembered the feeling of Delenn's wet hair slipping through her fingers as she helped her comb it, the contented way her head, held stiffly at first, at last lolled back against Susan's neck, dampening her uniform jacket, the heady smell produced by the mingling of her strange body chemistry and the perfumed conditioner, and the soft, happy sounds coming from the back of Delenn's throat while the brush and comb gently massaged her scalp.

Now Delenn stood before a small mirror in her bedroom and brushed out her long, silvery-dark hair with ease. "Your things are on the table by the window, Susan," she said pleasantly, laying down the brush and beginning to tuck and twist her thick tresses into a braid for the night. The deftness of her fingers on her hair reminded Susan of the prayer cord in her pocket. "I had the servants bring up some of your nightclothes from your usual guest room."

She was still naked to the waist; her skin was smooth and gilded with candlelight, and in the mirror, her soft, dusky nipples looked like rose petals. 

Susan tore herself away from the sight and went to change. She'd long since given up on lacy nightgowns and sexy underthings; there just didn't seem to be any point, and the damn things were such a pain in the ass to get through the laundry without tearing, that finally she'd thrown them all into the trash and gone back to the t-shirt and panties she'd slept in as a cadet.

Given who she was sleeping with tonight, though Susan _really_ wished she had kept one or two of the more interesting pieces. The little black satin number, maybe...

Susan turned back to ask Delenn if there was somewhere she could get changed, only to see her slipping something soft, black and silky over her bare skin. 

_Maybe not the black satin number, then._

She watched, more intent than she had any right to be, as her best friend's widow bent and slid her skirt from under her nightdress and laid it aside with her other clothes. At last she straightened the elegant curve of her body and looked at Susan, who suddenly gulped and tried very hard to look like she had been staring at something else, anything else. "You are going to be very uncomfortable tonight, if you intend to sleep in your uniform." Susan blushed under the good-natured teasing and mumbled something about needing to use the head.

Delenn quietly gestured to the master bathroom.

The facilities were more or less Earth-style in their reliance on water for personal hygiene, although like the other bathrooms in the house it eschewed simple sinks and faucets in favor of little pebbled grottoes and miniature motion-sensitive waterfalls, as though the best way for Delenn to overcome her species' natural fear and distrust of water was to wrap it in little fantasies. Susan stripped off her uniform and folded it. Then she stood naked and barefoot on the warm flagstones and glared at herself in the mirror. "She's your friend, Susan. She's your superior officer, she's John's widow, and she's your friend. For the love of _God_ , don't do anything stupid."

She pulled on her t-shirt and her underwear, brushed her teeth, splashed some water on her face and went back into the bedroom.

Delenn was already reclined against the angled bed, a blanket pulled up over her legs. Her hands were folded over her abdomen and her eyes were closed, her face relaxed and peaceful. She looked asleep. "Come to bed," she said, however, when Susan hesitated too long. She turned her head to look at the Human woman shivering in her shirt, hugging herself and rubbing one foot against the back of her leg, and smiled. "Come to bed, Susan," Delenn said again, more gently. She tugged down the blanket and patted the bed invitingly.

"All right," Susan grumbled, "now you're just patronizing me." She slid gingerly under the covers and was both relieved and annoyed when Delenn made no move to snuggle up to her. _And why should she? Don't be a moron._

She did turn over on her side, though, and rested one cheek on a slim hand to raise those searching sea-foam eyes up to Susan. "If this truly makes you uncomfortable, I will understand."

"No, I'm okay." Susan shifted and rolled over as well, deciding that if she couldn't touch Delenn (Dammit, stop thinking about it!), then at least she could quietly torture herself with looking at Delenn. She thought of the opportunity she'd wasted after dinner and figured that looking was probably all she'd ever get to do. "It's just... well, it's been a long time since I shared a bed with anyone."

"Yes. I know the sensation." For a moment, Delenn's steady gaze wavered, then firmed again. She touched Susan's arm. "Tell me the story?"

"I, uh... what?"

"You were speaking before about a story your mother used to tell you, that you named your doll after."

"'Vassilisa the Beautiful.' It was my mother's favorite story." It was Susan's turn to withdraw for a moment into her thoughts, remembering the rich, deep, musical tones and sad eyes of Sofie Ivanova. "When I was little, Mama telling stories meant that it was one of her good days. When the sleepers had started it wear off and she was coming back to being herself. She'd make challah and we'd all sit around the kitchen table, listening to her."

There was a vague longing on Delenn's face, and Susan recalled rather abruptly that her friend had barely known her own mother. "It's been a long time since I heard this story," she said, rather apologetically. "I'll tell what I can remember."

Delenn smiled.

By the third sentence, Susan had slipped naturally and unconsciously into the Russian of her childhood, but Delenn understood the language. She watched Susan's face eagerly and clung to every word, enthralled by the story, and a few times Susan had to work to keep talking, to not lose herself in the beauty that the simple story had brought to Delenn's face.

She wound the tale to its close and fell silent. Delenn let out a long, satisfied sigh. "Thank you, Susan."

"You're welcome. That was almost the story Mama used to tell. I didn't think I still had the whole thing in me."

"We always remember the things which are important, even if we do not realize it." Her hand have moved from Susan's arm to her waist, and suddenly Susan's entire body was electrified and awake to the sensation. "Are you tired, Susan?"

"No... no." She held her breath and wondered if she'd nodded off during the story-telling, but no, that was _definitely_ Delenn's hand under her shirt, and it was _definitely_ inching up her torso, and there was no way in hell she was going to screw up another chance to kiss Delenn. 

So Susan drew her close, and this time, did exactly that. She was warm and deliciously soft against Susan's lips, and when the gentle kiss ended and Susan would have pulled back, Delenn's simple "Don't go" was more than enough to destroy what little reluctant resolve she had left. She closed her eyes under Delenn's kiss, skimming her hands lightly over Delenn's side and back, and moaned gratefully when the slender exploring fingers finally made contact with the flesh of her breasts.

God, but it had been a long time since she'd been with another woman—since she'd been with _anyone_ ; Geneva hadn't exactly been a hot-bed of sexual intrigue. At least not in the circles Susan had moved in. It had been a boring, frustrating dead-end to her Earthforce career, and she'd come up with some creative ways to keep herself from going insane, and if some of those creative methods had involved guiltily fantasizing about the former ambassador, well, what was the harm in that? It wasn't like anything would ever come of it...

Frustrated at the movement-hampering cloth, Susan pulled her t-shirt off over her head and committed her body to Delenn's touch. She tried pulling Delenn's nightdress up over her hips but abandoned the attempt quickly; the other woman's touch was altogether enveloping. Delenn's hands were slow and sure and confident, no hesitation, as though she had known Susan's form for years and in the most intimate way possible. One hand cupping her left breast, holding it protectively and thumbing gently over the tightening nipple. The other hand moving up and down the length of Susan's torso in light, delicate strokes, first cradling her neck, then skimming down over breast and ribs and stomach to the top of her underwear, then back up, smoothing her palm flat over Susan's skin. 

Almost too quickly, her fingers dipped beneath the waistband of Susan's panties. "Not yet," Susan gasped, or tried to, "not ready yet," but Delenn's strong curving fingers slid so easy and slick across the Human flesh that Susan gave up trying to form words. She was more ready than she'd thought; the garment that Delenn inched down Susan's thighs was practically soaked through. 

Delenn hitched closer, breaking the kiss for a moment to murmur in Adronato something low and sweet and charged. Susan didn't quite catch it; instead, she twisted her fingers into Delenn's hair, loosening the braid frantically until the long soft strands fell in fragrant waves around her face. "Don't let me fall," Susan heard herself pleading. In Russian, naturally. She always went back to Russian. 

"Never," Delenn promised, in the same tongue. 

It seemed to stretch on forever. Her hand on Susan's breast, Susan's hands fisted against her back and hip, and Delenn's fingers working with lazy concentration on Susan's clit—not moving inside her, just short, soft strokes that slowly stole all the feeling from her legs and made her twitch and whimper until finally, finally, the sighing warmth of release. 

Delenn pulled the blanket up over Susan's nakedness and held her close, pressing soothing kisses to her throat. 

After a very long time, Susan's body calmed enough to let her speak. "D-delenn?"

"Mmm?"

"Did... did that really just happen?"

"Yes, Susan."

In the dark, the Human woman licked her swollen lips. "Why? I mean, not why, but..."

Delenn pressed a steady palm to Susan's cheek. "Because," she said softly, in the sure commanding tone that always sent a stab of desire straight to the Human woman's groin, "we both wanted it to." She brushed her lips across Susan's, letting Susan decide if and when to turn the small caress into something deeper. 

Tentatively, Susan pulled her closer, until Delenn was nearly straddling her hips. Susan slipped her hands under the loose black silk, making circles on Delenn's hips with her palms, then sliding up to caress her back. Her fingers stroked places along the spine that were almost too hot to be real; Delenn moaned softly into Susan's mouth. "You knew to touch there."

"I've read up on Minbari physiology since I came here. Gave me something to do."

A low, husky laugh. "Only since you came here, hmm? What about all those remarkable novels you wrote?"

Susan froze, and then her entire body flushed with a heat that had absolutely nothing to do with lust. "Shit," she murmured, and hid her face in the nearest soft object to hand, which happened to be Delenn's chest. "Okay, first, _how_ did you know I wrote those, and second, what in hell possessed you to read them?"

"Idle curiosity, at first." Delenn kissed the top of Susan's head, smiling into her hair and breathing in her scent. "They are popular among the Rangers, both Human and Minbari."

"...There are _Minbari_ reading my drugstore smut?"

"We are not a repressed people," said the President thoughtfully, "but that particular sort of reading matter is of a limited quantity, is not well-circulated, and always couched in the most archaic of dialects."

"Must be kind of hard to get off to dead languages."

"I know one or two scholars who would disagree with that assessment." Her fingers were in Susan's hair, smoothing through the fading brown strands, massaging the scalp. "I read them because the Rangers praised them for their simplicity, and for their sympathetic treatment of Humans and Minbari together. And for their attention to detail, of course."

Susan squirmed a little under the praise, which to her mind, was completely unwarranted. "You do realize those sorts of books are considered trash back on Earth, right?"

"So I was told," Delenn replied dryly. "And likewise, you must have come to realize how many mixed couples there are in the _anla'shok_ , and how little support they receive, outside of Tuzanor."

"Yeah..." Susan took a deep breath and pulled back just enough to look up into Delenn's eyes. They were very solemn. 

The slim, strong hands framed Susan's face tenderly. "There are many, among your people and mine, who would condemn us for what has passed between us this night."

"I know. Some things... some things just never change." She brushed the backs of her fingers across Delenn's cheek, and then, she wasn't sure why, she rested her fingertips on Delenn's temple, where bone crest melded with skin. A crooked little smile tugged at Susan's lips.

Delenn turned her head just enough so that she could kiss Susan's palm. "And some things," she said, echoing Susan's unspoken thoughts, "do." She shifted and straightened, and rose up to pull the nightdress over her head in one graceful, fluid motion. She was golden in the low light, golden and unreal, and there was awe written all over Susan's face. 

"How, um... how'd you know I was the writer? I always published under a pseudonym."

Delenn merely smiled. 

She took Susan's hands and settled them firmly on her hips, leaning her own on Susan's shoulders for support, while Susan explored the undulating flares of blue heat that flanked Delenn's spine. 

They were interesting, but there was another patch of blue low on Delenn's stomach that Susan was more intrigued by. She rolled Delenn onto her back and continued exploring.

*** 

Susan woke abruptly while Delenn was out watching the sunrise. She dressed in a hurry and slipped out of the house before the servants could stop her to inquire after her health or her requirements for breakfast. The Workers of Tuzanor were already up, moving silently about their pre-dawn tasks, preparing the city for daily use. The peculiar strong, colorful scents of their food wafted through the air, but Susan's stomach was in no mood to handle sustenance. In fact, she felt vaguely nauseous; there was a faint, sour taste in the back of her throat that she couldn't swallow, no matter how much she tried.

Her feet made their way easily to Ranger headquarters, but instead of taking the lift or climbing the stairs to her quarters to shower and change clothes before heading to her office, she went to the conservatory. Susan sat down on a bench, took the silver-colored prayer cord from the pocket where she had put it the night before, and rubbed it nervously between her forefinger and thumb while she waited for Kanell to appear for their weekly session.

Their appointment was not scheduled until well after mid-morning prayers, and it was only just past dawn. Susan had a lot of time to kill. 

Had last night really happened? Yeah... yeah, it had. For one thing, her whole body smelled like Delenn, and her hands especially; no doubt the more she rubbed, the more she worked the remnants of Delenn's scent into the simple piece of rope. She could feel the ghost of Delenn's hands lingering under her skin, on her back and breasts, between her thighs, and the echo of Delenn's mouth on her throat, her breath in Susan's hair, warm and sweet across her scalp, her slim hands steady on Susan's shoulders as Susan buried her face in Delenn's glorious breasts and pulled a rose-petal tip into her mouth...

Susan's eyes snapped open. 

She shoved the prayer cord into her vest pocket and took out her pike instead. Better to do something _useful_ with her time.

When Kanell finally arrived, he found Susan working her way through her thirty-second set of _denn'bok_ forms. Her hair was wild, her face was flushed and sweating, and her muscles screamed at her. Her counselor looked her over in some concern. "Is everything well with you, _Anla'shok Na_?"

"That depends on what you consider 'well.'" Susan finished her last exercise with a flourish and collapsed her pike, breathing a little heavily. She went over to one of the fountains and plunged her head under the flow of water, washing away the salt tang of sweat and gulping down the cold sweetness. The sour taste in the back of her throat had calmed. She dried her face on her sleeve and plopped down on a bench, grinning at the look of vague unease that her ablutions had given Kanell. "So I, um… last night, I…" All the adrenaline that her exercise had given her, and all the confidence that went with it, drained away. Susan swallowed hard, clutching the folds of her vest in her two hands. 

"Last night, I…"

Kanell waited. His face was open and placid, trustworthy.

"Last night…" Susan took a deep breath. "Damn, I can't get it out."

"Calmly," said Kanell, drawing her eyes to his hands as he had done the day before, making her copy his movements without realizing it. He laid his hands flat on his knees and Susan did the same. "Form the thought in your mind."

_Easy enough. "I had sex with Delenn."_

"Now. Is the thought clear?"

 _"I had sex with Delenn."_ "Yes."

"It is precisely as you wish to vocalize it?"

 _"I had sex with Delenn. I had sex with Delenn."_ "Yes."

"Then when you are ready, say it."

Susan closed her eyes, did her best to perform a simple centering exercise and failed miserably, gave up and opened her eyes and looked at her counselor. "I had seahhh, God _dammit!_ I had sex with Delenn. Last night. All night. A lot. It was fantastic and everything I'd ever dreamed of and now I'm scared out of my mind about what it means." 

He didn't even bat an eye. "Calmly, Ranger One," he said, taking out his prayer cord and motioning for her to do the same.

"Fuck your calm," Susan snapped. "I don't want to sit here whining about my feelings and turning bits of rope into knots. I want to go and beat hell out of someone until I'm too exhausted to think! I want to--to go up to Delenn's office and screw her senseless. I want to feel so much that I lose the _capacity_ to feel. God damn it, I don't _want_ to be calm. I'm _tired_ of being calm--"

"Then why are you here?"

His retort cut her off in mid-rant. "What?"

"Why are you here, Susan Ivanova? Here, speaking with me? Is it because you want peace for your mind and heart? Or is it because _Entil'zha_ Delenn sent you to me?" His dark eyes narrowed to sharp points. "If you're only here for her, then be gone. There's nothing I can do for you. Nothing anyone can do for you, if you have so little respect for yourself." Kanell got to his feet and strode towards the door. 

"Wait."

Kanell paused. 

Susan gritted her teeth. The sour taste was back in her mouth, and the lump in her throat, and the feeling of walls encroaching, closing in on her. "I'm here because… because I need help. Because I _want_ help. I don't want to always feel like this, like I'm trapped on a planet full of monsters, like I always have to be on my guard, like--like I just traded sexual favors in exchange for Delenn's protection."

"Is that what you believe happened between you and _Entil'zha_?"

"No, I--!" Susan forced her voice back to something resembling normal. "No. No, I don't believe that. I'm just being paranoid."

"Do you often suffer from paranoia regarding your lovers?"

"I am _Russian_ , Kanell. I'm paranoid about everything."

Kanell chuckled softly. Leaning forward, he plucked the prayer cord from her pocket and laid it in her hands. "Calmly, Ranger One," he said gently. "Calmly. When you are calm, tell me, and we shall move forward."

Susan nodded. Clumsily, she began to untwist the prayer cord. The fibers released a tantalizing scent to tease at her nostrils, made it hard to concentrate. _You're not doing this for Delenn,_ she reminded herself, _you're doing this for **you**. For Mama. For Ganya. Talia. Marcus._

_Mama. Ganya. Talia. Marcus._

_Mama._

_Ganya._

_Talia._

_Marcus._

At some point the mantra migrated from her mind to her lips, and Susan realized she was murmuring their names as she braided and unbraided. There were tears running down her face, but her hands were steady.

*** 

That was the way it went, for months. One morning every week, she met with Kanell in the conservatory. Sometimes they talked—or rather, Susan talked and Kanell listened. He didn't offer advice unless she asked for it, which she rarely did. He had the subtle intuition that the Worker caste seemed to be born possessing, and seemed to understand better than Susan how very badly she needed someone to talk to who had no real stake in her emotional life. Everyone else who was willing to listen was a friend, family, a loved one... all the people whom Susan most wanted to protect from the ghosts and doubts she carried around with her. Kanell, bless him, was nobody. He cared because it was his job to care, because he wanted her to be whole within herself. It had nothing to do with him.

Strange, how liberating that should be.

"I slept with Del—I mean, I had sex with Delenn again last night," said Susan, remembering that Minbari often slept with one another without any intention of having sex. Certainly she spent a great many more nights in Delenn's bed than out of it, even if nothing happened but a lot of low words and kisses that were more desperation than desire.

"Who began it this time?"

"I did. But she finished it. Doesn't matter who starts it, I always end up the one surrendering... I-I think I'm falling in love with her, Kanell." He gave her a smile of sympathetic disbelief, and Susan sighed. "Yeah, I know, who'm I kidding? I've been in love with her for months now."

"And that still frightens you."

"The last person I thought I could love turned out to be someone else entirely."

"Talia."

Susan's throat still tightened at the mention of the name, all these years later. It hurt more than it should have, losing Talia, because of _how_ she had lost her. "It scares me, and it's stupid that it scares me, because Delenn is... Delenn." She had to smile at her counselor's visible hesitation. "Oh, don't misunderstand. I know damn well that the Minbari have more of a monopoly on creative truths than anyone else in the universe. I know that there's plenty about Delenn that she's always going to keep locked up from just about anyone she loves. But she's always going to be Delenn. That's why it's stupid for me to be afraid that anything like what happened with Talia is going to happen here. But knowing it's stupid... doesn't make the fear go away."

Kanell nodded slowly. It was a sentiment he understood all too well. "Do you believe Delenn feels the same way towards you?"

"I... I don't know. I think so. I mean, it's _Delenn_. She didn't have to go through the trouble of getting my head readjusted just so she could someone to screw every once in a while." Kanell gave her the look again. "Okay, more than once in a while. But the point still stands."

"Have you told her?"

"No."

"Why not?" Susan concentrated on her prayer cord and ignored the question. Kanell sighed. "Susan. Everyone that anybody loves, dies. It is the nature of things."

"Is that supposed to be comforting? Because it's really fucking not."

"You want comfort, go talk to a priest. You agreed to come to me so you could get on with your life." He leaned his elbows on his knees and rested his chin on his cupped hands. "Do you still believe what you told me when your relationship with Delenn began? That it was nothing more than an exchange of sexual favors in return for protection on a hostile planet?"

Susan shook her head. "I didn't even believe it at the start."

"But you said it. You must have had a reason to say such a serious untruth."

"Well..." The fibers felt like Delenn's hair. "It's easier, isn't it?"

"Easier?"

"Easier to tell myself that that's what's been happening all these months, instead of me falling in love with a woman who's President of the Interstellar Alliance, the spiritual head of the Rangers, my direct superior, and oh, incidentally, the wife of my dead best friend."

"Easier to tell yourself that you were giving your body to a Minbari as part of a transaction than admit you were falling in love with one of the monsters that killed your brother."

Susan felt the muscles in her neck go taut. "God... damn you, Kanell," she ground out. Hate burned in her stomach as she stared at his weathered face, his calm, sad brown eyes just like a dog's, the hands that had so gently guided herself over the weeks... 

The proverbial devil on her shoulder was whispering again. _"Hands like that killed Ganya..."_

But that had been in war. That had been thirty years ago. And hands like Ganya's had killed Kanell's people, Kanell who was trying to help her...

"Damn you," she said again, but tiredly, without heat.

Susan got up and left the conservatory. 

She left the building, left Ranger headquarters, and thought seriously about leaving Tuzanor altogether. Hell, why stop there? Why not just leave Minbar? If it was that fucking obvious that she was never going to be able to feel at ease even with people she should be able to trust, people who cared about her, loved her...

She went to the President's house.

It was the middle of the day and Delenn was not there, but the guards had been instructed to always give Ranger One access to Delenn's home and no one challenged her when she stalked through the gates, bypassed the house altogether, and strode off into the extensive grounds. 

Susan knew these gardens well. She'd walked them many times over the last few months, well-wrapped against the cold and her hand tucked snugly in Delenn's, while they talked about the business of the Rangers, the flavor-of-the-month political tribulations among the League, their lives before knowing one another... Quieter things, shared in hushed voices. 

Marcus. Lennier. Talia. John. Susan's parents and Delenn's. Coming to the almost-simultaneous realization that they had had far too similar childhoods. 

Tentative kisses as they stood in the middle of the cleared paths, totally without lust and all the more hesitant for it, feeling the rising of a different kind of heat and trembling with it, while snow fell in great fat flakes onto their hair and Delenn brushed it from Susan's cheek.

_"I promised you," Delenn told her, "that I would not let you fall. I will keep that promise, Susan, whatever path you must walk."_

_Susan's fingers curled around Delenn's, held her hand more firmly against her cheek. Susan wore gloves but Delenn's hands were bare, and Susan turned her face to nuzzle the smooth, slender palm, and kiss it with a soft kind of despair._

_"This scares me, Delenn. You know why."_

_"Yes. Yes, I do." Surrounded by all the whiteness, the green in Delenn's eyes shone all the brighter. Her lips were red and the silver streaks in her hair blended with the snow. Like Snow White, Susan thought, like a fairytale. "We have fought so long together, Susan, against fear. Please. Do not give into it now."_

_Susan nodded. There was a lump in her throat she was not prepared to give way to. She did not want to cry in front of Delenn. Instead, she hugged her friend hard, feeling the slenderness of her body beneath the thick cloak, and underneath that, the bottomless strength._

Night was coming, and without any prompting from her, Susan's boots had brought her to a startling sight: an Earth-style greenhouse made of beautifully-crafted panes of semi-transparent Minbari crystal. She stared at the structure for some time, remembering warmer days when John had conducted her into the newly-built greenhouse himself, with all the pride of a new parent. "A little piece of Earth," he'd called it, speaking of his plans to grow orange trees. 

She put her hand to the door. It was very tightly closed but not locked, and Susan pushed the handle down and stepped into the warm, moist citrus-scented air, careful to shut the door behind her. A series of motion-sensitive lights flooded the little building, momentarily confusing the hives of honeybees in the corner. Susan ignored the benches and sat down in the soft soil between the raised beds, hugging her knees to her chest. 

Kanell was right, of course. It was easier to think of her relationship with Delenn as a simple transaction than anything more meaningful, especially since every single one of their liaisons had ended with Susan a shivering lump in Delenn's arms, completely unable to return any of the pleasure she had been given. Even that first night, when she had been so intent upon learning the more intimate details of Delenn's body, had gone off the rails; the moment she had moved to taste the Minbari woman, Delenn had reached down and pulled Susan back up to continue her own explorations. 

Had Delenn not wanted Susan to make love to her like that? When looked at as a simple question, on the whole, Susan doubted that was the case. There hadn't been any reluctance between either of them that night, but... maybe Delenn hadn't wanted to push her too far? 

Unconsciously, she took out her prayer cord, holding it between her clasped hands while she thought. She sat so still that the lighting system clicked off, and left her in the dark. 

As a little girl, Susan had been terribly afraid of the dark, and of the fairytale monsters that lurked in the shadows. Her big brother would climb into bed with her and promise to protect her, but sometimes nothing would soothe her but the presence of their mother, so Ganya would fetch her. As she got older, Susan had learned to call for Mama herself. Those had been the times when she had most loved her mother and brother, because whenever little Susan cried out in the night, Mama would come in and wrap her and Ganya up in a blanket and hold them close, and touch their minds with all the enveloping love and protectiveness that only a parent could feel for her children.

_When the PsyCorps came with the sleepers, that was when Mama had given her Vassilisa. "You know the stories, Susochka," she had said, folding the little doll into her daughter's hands. She had smiled so brightly that Susan didn't see the tears in her eyes; that was in the beginning, before the drugs had slowly stolen Sofie from her children and husband. "Whenever you're scared, just give Vassilisa a bit of bread or a little tea—a little, mind you!—and she will help you not to feel afraid. Do you understand?"_

_Six-year-old Susan had nodded emphatically, clutching the doll to her chest. "What about you, Mama? Won't you be here with me?"_

_"Of course I will, little soul."_

_Satisfied, little Susan kissed her new dolly._

In the greenhouse on Minbar, Susan kissed her prayer cord. "I miss you, Mama," she whispered softly, in the language of her childhood. "Ganya... miss you, big brother."

Talia had been afraid of the dark as well. Some nights when she slept over in Susan's quarters, her dreams had been so violent and loud that they had woken Susan out of her sleep, and only the danger of Talia discovering that her lover was an unregistered telepath had kept Susan from screaming out in shared terror. Instead, she would wrap her arms around Talia and hold her tightly, kissing her neck to try and break her from the grip of her nightmares. 

_"You were moaning in your sleep," Susan lied when Talia was awake and shaking as the dreams faded. "And not pleasant moaning, either."_

_It put a half-smile on Talia's face, at least. "Sorry."_

_"The same thing?"_

_"Always is."_

_They never talked about Talia's nightmares, not about the details. Susan knew they were memories from Talia's days in training and in the court system, and that was all she wanted to know, while Talia... didn't seem to want to share anymore than that. Susan understood, or thought she did. Some hurts went so deep that they became friends, and prodding the old wounds caused less pain than trying to heal them completely._

_Those were always the moments when Susan desperately wanted to tell Talia the truth, that she was like Talia. That she loved Talia._

_"Well," said Susan, kissing Talia's cheekbone. "I'm here, anyway."_

_Talia snuggled back, molding her body closely against Susan's chest. "I'm glad of that," she murmured, in the throaty way she had whenever she was trying to maintain control, and she threaded her fingers through Susan's._

"I miss you, Talia. I'm sorry I never told you."

Marcus... 

She shut down that train of thought immediately. She wasn't ready to think about Marcus yet. No matter that she thought of him, all unwilling, every single morning, as soon as she pinned the _isil'zha_ jewel to her breast. Sweet, noble, angry, idiotic Marcus--

Suddenly enraged, Susan gripped her prayer cord in her fist and then stuffed it into her pocket. 

The dark of the Minbari winter grew darker before anyone came to bring the lights back to the greenhouse and disturb Susan's unhelpful meditations. "The guards said I might find you here," said Delenn, closing the door firmly against the rising wind. She shed her heavy cloak like a woman unaccustomed to casting off her cares, and finding it a rare privilege. "Are you all right, Susan? I understand you left work early."

"Yeah, I know I need to stop doing that."

"Turhan and the others understand." Susan winced. "They understand that you are under a great deal of stress," Delenn elaborated, sitting down on the soft ground before Susan and folding her legs gracefully beneath her, "and still require time to acclimate yourself."

"Thank you. I..." Susan ran a hand over her hair. "I had a bit of a dust-up with Kanell today. He said something that hit... well, a little too close to home."

Delenn's hand was steady on her shoulder. "Do you wish to talk about it?"

"No. It doesn't matter. No, I just--" Susan cut herself off in mid-sentence. She took a deep breath and let her spine sag a little more in Delenn's reassuring presence. She looked into Delenn's lovely eyes, like sea foam and star dust, and smiled lopsidedly. "I love you, Delenn."

It was the first time she had ever seen Delenn so genuinely surprised, and for a few tense seconds Susan was sure she'd made a terrible miscalculation—not a mistake. Telling her had instantly lifted a weight from Susan's heart that she wouldn't wish back, not for anything. But if this wasn't what Delenn wanted, then Susan would have to live with it and Susan... hadn't thought that far ahead. 

And then Delenn's stunned expression transformed into a heart-melting smile. "Susan," she began, but her voice caught in her throat. "Susenn, _ah'melierla_ ," she said in Adronato, a word that Susan's brain translated as 'my cherished one. " _Ah'fel'E,_ Susenn." She drew Susan into her arms, pressed her lips to Susan's and for a long time, the two women simply held one another.

There was not much room between the raised planting beds, but somehow Susan found herself lying down on the soil, with Delenn half-draped over her. And damnably comfortable it was, too. So comfortable that it took Susan a full ten seconds of staring at Delenn beginning to work her way down the front of Susan's uniform before she realized what was happening.

"Wait, here?" Susan's voice climbed an octave in utter horror. She sat up at once, dislodging the Minbari woman. "Delenn, I—I _can't_! This was John's—and it's practically transparent..." The phrase "What would the neighbors think?" hovered absurdly on the tip of her tongue.

"No one will see us," Delenn assured her, laying her hands on Susan's shoulders and rubbing them soothingly. "And I do not think John would mind."

Susan closed her eyes. It was the first time Delenn had said John's name in months. "I can't," she whispered. 

The gentle massage did not stop, but Delenn leaned over and brushed a kiss across Susan's temple. "It is all right, _ah'melierla,_ " she said, her low warm voice a caress in itself. "I understand." 

Then she folded her arms around her friend as Susan finally began to cry, laying her cheek against one of Susan's shoulder blades in testament to her presence. 

*** 

Quietly, Susan dressed. It was well before dawn, and Delenn was still asleep. Very, very gently, Susan brushed a kiss across her cheek before she slipped out of the house. 

"Dawn" was a relative term in the middle of winter, when the sun didn't actually rise until nearly midday, but no matter where she was, Delenn would stop and take the time to sit and watch the sun rise, even if only to see it set again an hour or two later. 

It was her memorial to John. Maybe one day, Susan would join her.  
She went to her office for a few hours, to catch up on the paperwork she had abandoned the day before, and when it reached an hour when the inhabitants of the city would begin to wake, she made her way into the Minvas Mer'hak, the Worker district of Tuzanor. 

"I'm sorry," she said when Kanell opened the door to his home. "You were right. I mean, you _weren't_ right, that's not why--but you made me think about things, and I shouldn't have gotten angry with you for doing your job."

"That," he said dryly, "is also part of my job. But I thank you."

Susan followed him inside, where to one side of a chaotic great room that seemed to serve as living room, dining room and play room all together, one small boy was trying to coax another, smaller boy, into finished getting dressed now, please. "Eldann, Tarris," said their father mildly, "we have company."

The two rambunctious children stopped their arguing immediately, and became solemn and respectful, saluting Susan clumsily in the Worker fashion--the fingers of each hand curling into the opposite palm. Fighting back the urge to grin, Susan bowed politely to the boys. It was the first time she had seen young Minbari up close, and in spite of their bald heads and lack of eyebrows, she was surprised at how, without the adult crest, they looked so similar to Human children. The elder boy, Eldann, had two delicate wings of velvet-covered bone flanking the sides of his skull, while the younger, Tarris, merely had two crescent shapes arching over his ears, more fuzz than bone. 

Beside her, Kanell seemed to be waiting for something. Then he coughed softly. "Manners, my sons," he chided.

The boys, who had been staring openly, jumped. Eldann pulled a now-unresisting Tarris to a corner to finish dressing him; Kanell offered Susan a seat at the table. The remains of their morning meal were still strewn about, but he made no apologies for the state of his home. "I was worried for you yesterday," said her counselor quietly. "I thought perhaps... no, I don't know what I thought." There were circles under his eyes, Susan noticed. He had lost sleep over her. 

"I didn't do anything rash, I promise. I just went home."

His brow twitched. "'Home,' Ranger One?"

Susan blushed, which told the whole story. "I went to the President's house," she explained, unnecessarily. 

Kanell gave her a disgustingly knowing look, but all he said was "Hmm. Things went well?"

"Yeah."

"You told her?"

Susan blushed again, and didn't bother to hide the grin. "Yeah."

Something soft and insistent thumped against her leg, and she looked down to see a tiny Minbari boy (now mostly dressed) climbing into her lap. 

"Tarris," his father scolded, and reached to remove the child. 

"No, it's okay, really." Susan stared down in mute wonder at the little boy, who was all of six years old but looked and acted much younger than a Human of that age—if she hadn't known better, she would not have guessed him to be any more than two—as he worked delicate fingers into her uniform, rubbing his face against the fabric like a cat making friends. 

Kanell beckoned to his elder son. "Come, Eldann, let's clean up."

Susan barely noticed them bringing dishes to the little flat's kitchen. Tarris had taken her hand and was rubbing his cheek against her palm. The movement and the sensations it created was tugging at something in the back of her mind, a feeling of warmth, calmness and protection. 

"Oh my God," she said aloud, startled. 

The little boy looked up at her, his tiny features wrinkled in a very serious frown. _**?**_

She felt his small, clear wordless question in her mind before she could block it, at the same moment that Kanell poked his head out of the kitchen. "Is something wrong?"

"Uh, no. No. Nothing's... no." Susan swallowed hard, and hugged Tarris. "I'm well, little one," she murmured roughly in the Worker's dialect. She felt the boy smile as he hugged her back, his pliant arms stretching like vines around her neck. 

The neighbor who looked after the children while their father was out for the day arrived all too soon; Susan had to fight back tears when the Tarris let her go. 

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked Kanell as they walked to their respective places of work. 

He was a long time answering. "It is... difficult enough, to be a father to such a child. I did not want you to think that his gift had anything to do with my feelings of resentment towards him. Knowing what I did of your history..."

"I know how greatly telepaths are honored here. I wouldn't have thought that."

"Not consciously, perhaps, but the presumption would have been there. And that would have hindered your progress." He shook his head. "No, I have enough weight on my soul for the feelings I _do_ harbor towards Tarris. I do not need any others."

"He's a lovely boy," said Susan carefully.

Kanell snorted. "He is. He is an innocent, affectionate, artless child who loves me fiercely. And it shames me that I cannot return that love the way a father should. Now you see why I must guard myself so carefully around my sons. Tarris is guiltless of my wife's blood... but in the deepest recesses of my mind, I can never accept that."

They stopped outside the building where Kanell had his office. "One day when Tarris is grown, I shall let him into my mind. There he will find the naked truth of all my coming years of strange and likely cold behavior. I may lose a son through my honesty, but at least I shall find peace." He took a deep breath. "In the meantime, I shall attempt to practice what I teach."

"Is that why you do what you do?" Susan asked. "Healing souls? To help other people find the peace you can't?"

Her _idae'mer_ smiled slightly. "That is one reason, yes. The newest reason."

"That's not... really a healthy way to live," said Susan, aware that she was in no position to say such things to anyone. 

"Isn't that why you came to Minbar?" the counselor replied without missing a beat. "Because of your obligations to John Sheridan and Delenn? Because of your history with Marcus Cole? That is why he came, after all, because he felt he had a burden to bear for the sake of his brother."

Susan was silent for a long time. "When I was a little girl, the rabbi at the local synagogue was practically a member of the family. Especially after my mother died. He told me once, 'It's not the duties we love to do that mean the most, but the ones we do for love.' You'd like him."

"He sounds like a wise man," said Kanell. 

"He was. But I think about what he'd say about my being here, leading the Rangers... and you know what I think he'd ask me? He'd say, 'Are you doing this thing out of love for your friends, Susochka? Or are you doing it out of obligation to the dead?'"

Her friend sat back. "Do you know the answer?"

Susan thought for a moment, then snorted. "Both." She glanced at Kanell and smiled. "I'll be okay soon, really. I just need to get all of my crippling self-doubt over and done with as quickly as possible. That way I can be pleasantly surprised when things turn out well." 

Kanell was pensive. "That seems like a very unhappy way to look at the world."

"Yes. Yes, it is. But I'm Russian; it's traditional."

"Since the first time you told me that, _Anla'shok Na_ , I have made it a point to seek out others of your nationality. They do not seem to share your level of pessimism."

"But they are all pessimists," Susan retorted blithely. "Like you."

"Pessimists always expect the worst out of life, and occasionally hope for the best. I am a realist; I expect nothing from life—to expect the universe to simply provide is presumptuous. Just as expecting the universe to inflict nothing but pain is presumptuous. But while your fellow Russian are surprisingly cheerful about their depressing convictions... not to the extent that you seem to hide behind."

 _Ouch. Okay, that one hurt._ "It's just taking a little longer than usual," she assured him, "that's all. I promise. I'm where I want to be."

*** 

Life went on. Her work became less of a strain on her psyche. Her sessions with Kanell became less frequent but more uplifting. Sometimes he brought Tarris, who was always so delighted to see Susan that he would run straight to her and climb up her legs and torso, just so he could hug her and nuzzle his face against hers. Delenn's bed began to feel less like a betrayal and more like... well, more like Susan's own bed. 

And yet the higher she climbed out of the canyon her life had tried to throw her down, the more irritated Susan became. 

She first noticed it when she was discussing crew rotations in the fleet. A commonplace enough affair. And every time she made a suggestion of what captain should be assigned to which ship and crew, or which White Star was in desperate need of time in drydock, she saw a subtle pause in the eyes of her _anla'shok_ colleagues before one of them would say, "That seems reasonable, of course, Ranger One. But we must confer with _Entil'zha_ Delenn first." 

Which made no damn sense to Susan. 

"Aren't I supposed to be in charge?" she fumed to Delenn as they sat in Susan's somewhat-dusty quarters in the administration building. "I mean, what the hell's the point of having a Ranger One if the entire command staff is just going to bypass me and go to you when they need something done?"

Delenn's smile was tired. "It is simply a matter of procedure," she said, closing her eyes as she rubbed her forehead. She had also had a long and annoying day, and vaguely Susan knew that the best thing for both of them was to let the President go home and rest and leave Ranger One to her solitary kvetching. "I instructed them when you came to Minbar that if they had any concerns you were unable to answer, that they should come to me."

"I've been here almost a year, Delenn, I think we're pretty well past me being unable to answer their questions about troop movements."

"They do not know you, Susan."

"They must know me by reputation, if nothing else. Earthforce general, explorer of the Rim, veteran of the Shadow War, the woman Marcus Cole died for, the crazy Human Delenn's been sleeping with..." Susan snorted softly. "Then again, maybe that's part of the problem."

"I doubt it."

"What, are your lovers are sacrosanct or something?"

A regal and slightly affronted expression settled on Delenn's face. "Who I choose to have sex with does not affect Ranger command's decision-making. This is not Earth, Susan. Our private lives are private."

"Right. So why is my private life different?" Susan huffed. "Why do all the _sechs_ seem to know that I've been seeing a soul-healer for the last three-quarters of a year?"

"They do not know—or if they do, you have my word that I did not tell them."

"Oh, I believe that. No politician in her right mind wants the world to know she's screwing someone with a screw loose."

Delenn pursed her lips in a way that suggested she was preparing for battle and leveled a spear-like pair of eyes at Susan. "You have problems. You acknowledged them and chose to face them. You asked me to stand by you. I have done so. Whatever else has happened between us has been separate from those problems."

"You believe that."

"I do."

"Then tell me straight out: Why are you still vetting my work? Hmm? Why is the command staff reporting directly to you and not to me?"

"I told you why," the President replied, her cool, even voice raising Susan's hackles. "You are not John. Nor are you me. You have a very different way of working and leading, and you have obviously been in a period of difficult transition since you came here. The captains and the _sechs_ simply wish to ensure that the business of the Rangers gets done in the most efficient way--"

Susan slammed a hand down on the table; the sharp ringing sound made her jump, but Delenn didn't even flinch. "Look, can we just cut the crap, please? If you've got a problem with the work I'm doing here, why don't you just fucking say it?"

Delenn stared at her. "It is not like you to be this irrational. Were you drinking before I arrived, Susan? Are you intoxicated?"

"No, I'm not drunk, I'm pissed! Or am I not allowed to be angry without being drunk first? 'Cause if you _want_ me to get drunk, I've got one bottle of vodka left and I've been saving it for a special occasion." Susan pushed out of her chair and made for the cabinet in the corner, but Delenn rose quickly, caught her by the arm and held her. Susan whirled on the other woman. "You have precisely _three seconds_ to get your hand off me or--"

"Or what?" retorted Delenn. "Or I will not have a hand? You, of all people, should not presume so high." She released Susan's arm, but held her eyes. "What has happened today to cause such a change in you? You were well enough this morning."

"That was before I realized that there was a conspiracy to make Ranger command think I'm completely incompetent."

"Susan, you are being paranoid and absurd!" Delenn raised a hand to forestall Susan's inevitable retort. "And if you say, 'Of course, I'm Russian' one more time, I will not be responsible for what follows."

Susan snorted angrily. "Y'know, if you keep trying to convince me that there's nothing going on behind my back, we're going to be here all night."

"And if you persist in bemoaning every perceived slight against you," Delenn snapped, "we shall still be here until spring. Tell me what is _wrong_ , Susan."

"God, I don't know. Maybe I'm just tired of feeling like your personal project? Or maybe I'm suspicious of how ever since you started 'helping me,' Durhan and Turval and the rest of the chain of command around here have all politely stopped listening to my recommendations?" Susan's eyes flashed. "What in hell have you been telling them about me?

"Susan, please--"

"No, Delenn. Because I'm sick of your _bullshit_! You go out of your way to surround yourself with people who obey you without question and indulge all your bad impulses and selfish aggrandizement, and I'm tired of it!"

She reeled back as though struck. "I do not choose such people on _purpose_."

"Of course not. You just magically surround yourself with people who are so devoted to you and smitten with you that it never occurs to them to challenge your assumptions."

"You mean the way you bluster and bully the people around you into accepting your view of the universe?"

Susan gaped at her. "I do not."

Delenn just looked at her. Her grey-green eyes snapped in her regal face, and Susan was momentarily blindsided by the sight. 

"You're enjoying this," the Human accused, a little belatedly. 

"Perhaps."

"You don't even care about winning, or whether or not I agree with your argument, you're just enjoying having it out with someone you know--"

"Someone I know will not patronize me or indulge my 'bad impulses'?" Delenn's smile was almost seductive, it was so smug. "Although as to winning, I always care about that."

"At least you admit it. And you think you're going to win this debate."

"Naturally."

Susan started to say something about how this was the kind of conversation that could only end in a gunshot. Then she threw caution to the wind, and before she could stop herself, she grabbed Delenn and kissed her. She half-expected to get knocked to the ground; instead, the president of the Interstellar Alliance returned the kiss, tangling her hands in Susan's hair and nearly bruising the other woman's lips with the pressure of her mouth. 

"I thought," Delenn said, slightly breathless when they finally broke apart, "you said you would not indulge my 'bad impulses' any longer."

"Who said I was indulging you?" Susan retorted, kissing her again. Delenn's hands were already under her uniform, her fingers slim and warm against Susan's back. "I've got impulses of my own that need stroking, you know."

She realized too late the double entendre she'd let slip, but the wicked curl to Minbari woman's lips said eloquently that if Susan had missed it, Delenn had not. "You asked me once," Delenn said, almost conversationally, while she worked the vest and tunic from Susan's shoulders, "how I knew those erotica novels had been written by you."

"And you never told me," Susan said, sliding her hands over Delenn's rump and pulling up her skirts to get to the skin beneath.

"I became distracted."

"You become distracted when it's convenient." Susan unhooked her bra and dropped it to the floor, then let her head fall back while Delenn became reacquainted with her breasts. "How'd you know?"

"In the third novel, _Yellow Moon Butterflies_ —"

"God, my editors were shit at titles..."

"You described a scene where the Minbari female sits in a bathroom and discreetly observes her Human friend showering." Delenn ran a tongue up the column of Susan's neck, and smiled. "It was a very familiar scene, even if you did get the species reversed."

Susan blushed. All over. "I completely forgot I put that into a book," she admitted, ducking her head. 

Delenn caught her chin and kissed her firmly. "I was very flattered."

They shed the rest of their close quickly and tumbled to Susan's wide, flat bed, touching and mouthing hungrily as though they had never come together before. Susan held Delenn's breasts in her hands, suckling the nipples she kept comparing to rose petals, though she still couldn't figure out why. The analogy made no sense. Her hands stroked smoothly up and down Delenn's sinuous back, tracing the bare line of the spine—there should have been scales there, she knew, gone from hard to soft with desire, but Delenn had lost them in her long-ago change. The flares of blue like fractals that flanked her spinal column remained, though, pulsing hot under Susan's hands, and Delenn hummed low in her throat with pleasure at the touch.

She pushed Susan back against the pillows and slowly made her way down her body, until  
at last Delenn crouched between Susan's legs like a vision; her light-and-dark hair tumbled around her face and framed her pale eyes until they seemed to glow, all in the split second before she dropped her gaze and dipped her head. At the first touch of Delenn's tongue, Susan let out a curse of a prayer and pressed her hand flat on Delenn's scalp. "Don't you dare stop," she gasped.

The Minbari woman laughed against the crease of Susan's thigh. 

Delenn slipped her fingers into Susan's wetness, and her mouth moved in time with them in what felt to Susan like agonizing slowness, drawing long moans from Susan's throat. "Delenn.... God..." Then the tempo changed; Delenn thrust her hand harder, faster. Her tongue found the hard, swollen nub and teased it mercilessly until without warning, Susan ripped the pillow from under her head and clapped it over her mouth to muffle her screams, as her orgasm tore through her like a blade.

When she came down, and let the pillow flop limply to one side, Delenn was still kneeling between Susan's thighs. "You're smirking," said Susan, gasping a little. 

"Should I not be?"

"No. You look far too damn pleased with yourself."

In reply, Delenn's smirk merely deepened. 

Susan took that as a challenge. 

Delenn liked to be in charge in bed, like to take control of her own pleasure as well as Susan's. And Susan was more than ready for a change in this command structure, at least.

She pulled Delenn up for a cuddle, wrapped Delenn in her arms and rolled her onto her side, so that they were pressed chest to chest, with Susan's knee nudging lightly between Delenn's legs. Susan dipped her head and nipped lightly at Delenn's delicate collarbone, while her hand skimmed down her trim torso. She cupped the soft mound of Delenn's groin, one finger sliding across her moist slit. 

Immediately, Delenn pushed at Susan's shoulders, trying to get her on her back. This time, Susan resisted. "Oh, no," she murmured, grinned against Delenn's neck. "My turn." Delenn opened her mouth to protest. Susan responded with a long, thorough kiss. When she pulled back, Delenn had the most seductive smile on her lips that Susan had ever seen. 

Gently, tauntingly, she let her fingers trail over the sensitive flesh, while her mouth worked at Delenn's throat and her free hand stroked the patch of hot and cool on her back. 

She was used to Delenn being scrupulously quiet during sex. The most she usually allowed herself were a few breathy gasps, but other than that, even when she climaxed, she was all but silent.

But now she was making sounds, and they were Susan had never heard come out of any woman's throat before.

Minbari males thrummed when they made love. Susan had learned that by accident just by walking through the barracks late at night. The sounds Delenn was making were different, not as rasping, softer and a different key. Not a purr, there wasn't enough roll to it, just a low, constant, very satisfied hum, intermingled with soft gasps and quick moans, the kinds of sounds that made Susan wish she still kept a collection of sex toys in her nightstand so she could help produce more sounds just like them.

Still, she figured was doing all right with what she had. 

She slowly pushed two fingers inside Delenn, relishing the sounds she made and the way Delenn clenched around her. She added another, and then after a few moments, a fourth.

"Susan!"

"Like that, do you? Why'd you hold me off for so long?"

"I did not— _ah!_ " Susan had brushed her thumb purposefully across Delenn's clitoris. "I didn't want you to think I was using you for my own pleasures."

"I never thought that," said Susan, her voice gone husky.

"Susan... don't stop."

Susan pressed her lips to Delenn's cheek, moving her hand slowly until she felt the frustrated tension in Delenn's thighs against hers. She thrust suddenly, hard, and was rewarded with a glorious high keen and a string of genuinely beautiful Religious invectives.

Delenn thrust her hips impatiently against Susan's hand, buried her face in Susan's throat.

"No." Susan twisted her free hand into Delenn's hair and pulled her head gently back. "No, I want to see your face when you come. I want to _hear you_ , Delenn." She nipped lightly at Delenn's jaw bone. "Open your eyes. Look at me. Please."

Her beautiful gray-green eyes opened, so glazed and bright with pleasure that for a moment they couldn't focus. Delenn knotted one hand into Susan's thick hair, gripped the wrist at her groin with the other. "Ah... _Ah'fel'E, Susenn,_ " she cried.

"I love you too."

Delenn shattered against her fingers, sobbing out her pleasure in her own language. Susan held her close, whispering rough endearments in Russian.

They lay tangled together, spent and peaceful, with Delenn's head pillowed on Susan's shoulder. Susan's fingers stroked absently at the cool place between Delenn's warm shoulder blades. 

"Delenn... was this a bad idea?"

"Hmm. That depends. Do you still want to kill me?"

"Well... I do still want to wring your neck for calling me a bully."

Delenn smiled into Susan's hair. "That's all right. I still want to whack you over the head with a pike for accusing me of surrounding myself with lackeys."

"Except for the part where you _do_?" Delenn replied with a soft open-handed thwack on Susan's scalp. "Ow... okay, fair point." She stroked Delenn's side with the backs of her fingers. "The command staff. It's nothing more than what you said? Just a really long shake-down period?"

"Nothing more than that, _ah'melierla_. I promise."

"So... now what?"

"Now, Susan, we sleep. Mornings are better for such questions." Her leg was nestled between Susan's thighs as she lay half atop her lover, and the weight of Delenn's breasts and her arm across Susan's chest felt good.

*** 

The time of Susan's one-year anniversary began to approach. Nearly a year since she had arrived on Minbar to stay. 

She still saw Kanell at least once a month, sometimes officially, sometimes as a friend. His elder son went away to school for the first time, and without Eldann as a buffer, Kanell had no choice but to spend more time with Tarris, and Susan was glad, for many reasons, to see how close father and son were growing, in spite of Kanell's private feelings. 

Her relationship with Delenn remained as it had after their first fight; she loved and resented Delenn for her liberties. Delenn loved Susan and often took her for granted. They still fought, and made love, and relied on one another. Susan spent most of her nights in the President's bed, but was unwilling to give up her private quarters and her personal autonomy. 

But the nights she spent alone... she spent alone. And she was no longer too proud to confess her dilemma to Delenn. 

Delenn's response was to leave the supper table and disappear for a time. Confused, Susan tried to finish her meal, but the savor had left the food. When Delenn returned, she was holding a small, soft object in her hand. "This was David's when he was small," she said, putting it into Susan's hands. "It was a gift from his grandmother. I believe she made it herself, for John's sister. He's treasured it, all these years. I do not think he would mind you borrowing it."

Susan held the small rag doll in one hand. She smoothed its red yarn braids gently, and then held it close against the lump in her throat.

Sometimes, she and Delenn would cover their heads and visit Marcus. His loss was still the hardest for her to accept. She would always resent the circumstances that had taken her mother and brother and Talia from her, but at least she knew the things that had ended their lives were gone. The PsiCorps was long since disbanded, and the hostilities between Earth and Minbar a slowly fading scar on the collective memory of both worlds. 

Only Marcus, his pale, icy face etched with sacrifice, remained. It was something Susan doubted she would ever be able to be at peace with. But hopefully, some day, in some way, Marcus would be able to enjoy that peace for her. 

The two women left the cryo-facility together, with Delenn's arm about Susan's waist. 

*** 

Susan had come to Minbar at the tail-end of summer; only now was she getting to see the season in its full glory. It would last about two standard months, and would doubtless be the only time during Minbar's cycle when Susan felt comfortable wearing fewer than three layers. The Minbari Rangers, however, treated those eight weeks like a heat wave; off-duty, Susan was surprised to see males stripping down almost to their undergarments, while the younger females simply went about their business bare-chested. 

"Why the females and not the males?" Susan asked one afternoon, as she and Delenn were walking past one of the outdoor training fields. A large group of young trainees were playing a game that looked like a combination of Capture the Flag and Kill the Carrier, and many of the Minbari women were shirtless, with little apparent regard for who might see them.

A lifetime of ingrained ideas of public decency and a fear of being caught staring made Susan avert her eyes. Delenn's gaze, though, lingered. "For us, the back is considered one of the most beautiful parts of the body. In ancient times, the females chose only the finest and most beautiful males, and would fight one another for the right to a mate. The practice no longer occurs, of course, but the sentiment lingers; females bare their backs in public as a display of their beauty and prowess; males emphatically do not."

"Emphatically?"

"A male's naked back is considered..." Delenn hunted for a descriptive phrase. "An unmistakable prelude."

"Ah." Relieved of a little of her tension, Susan glanced back at the playing field and the ivory-and-lapis women darting from point to point, saw the sinuous lines of scales glittering down their spines and the slightly bereft look in Delenn's eyes at the sight. "So... they really don't mind being looked at by whoever walks by."

"On the contrary," Delenn smiled. "They expect it."

 _Like a bunch of half-naked cadets on a basketball court,_ Susan reasoned. "Nice to know posturing isn't confined to the same gender the whole galaxy across."

"Hmm?"

"Nothing. Come on, let's keep moving before they all notice _Entil'zha_ admiring them and get swelled heads."

They walked on. Delenn had taken Susan's arm, as she often habitually did when they walked together. "I have no seen much of you, these last few weeks," Delenn commented.

"I don't know how you could've seen much more of me--we've barely spent half a working day apart since I took over here, and that was last year."

"I meant--I have not seen you as a--a friend."

"Ah." Susan smiled, a little tiredly. "Well. Things have been busy. Lots of warm-weather training to coordinate."

"Summer will be ending soon. I hope you will find the opportunity to relax once winter sets in." Delenn squeezed her friend's arm. "I have missed you very much."

"I've missed you, too," said Susan, very softly. "But I said a lot of things to you, the last time we were together. I just thought I should spend some time alone. To think." 

"I understand." And she truly sounded as if she did. "I do not want to intrude upon your privacy, but... I care for you very much, Susan. Your well-being matters to me. And John would never forgive me if I allowed you to work yourself to death."

Susan felt an odd twinge of remorse. "That's the first time I've heard you mention John in a while."

Delenn's smile was wistful and sad, but also matter-of-fact. "Merely because I do not speak of him does not mean that I have abandoned him. He is in my thoughts and in my heart, always. But he would not have wished for me to close myself away. And there has been another in my thoughts, of late." She hesitated, just barely. "And in my heart."

"Delenn, I..." Susan felt the flush creeping up the back of her neck. "You know how I feel. About you, about John... It's so damn soon. I still feel really awkward, taking up with my dead best friend's widow—" Delenn's hand on her lips stopped her.

"I am _not_ John Sheridan's widow," said Delenn, quiet and firm. "I am Delenn. I have been John Sheridan's wife, and I will always love him and mourn for him. But he is gone. I am here. You, Susan Ivanova, you are here." Her fingers gently traced the curve of Susan's mouth. "And I would have you stay with me."

"I want to." The words slipped out before Susan could stop them.

"Are you still afraid? Of me, of what I am?"

"No. But..." Susan grasped Delenn's wrist and moved her hand away. "You're still _Entil'zha_. You're my direct superior. I don't feel totally comfortable having a public relationship with my CO."

"You are on Minbar," Delenn pointed out, "among Minbari. Such relationships here are considered utterly proper."

"But I'm still Human. I'm always going to be a Human from Earth, and I'm not ready to go completely native. Not yet."

Delenn's smile was sad, but her eyes never lost their look of resolute conviction. "I would never wish for you to be anything other than who and what you are."

Susan rubbed Delenn's strong, slim fingers and wondered if it was possible to love her more than she did in that moment. "That doesn't mean I want to end things," she continued, needing to be clear. "Just that... well, we should keep things quiet, for the time-being."

A look of absolute peace spread across Delenn's face. She curled a hand around the back of Susan's neck and pulled her down for a kiss, heedless of the Rangers walking by who were all struggling to keep the amused and curious expressions off their faces.

That wasn't quite what Susan had meant by 'keeping things quiet,' but she wasn't going to argue the point just then.


End file.
